Classics Mutilated Part 9

She wanted to run back to the house, but she made herself walk forward, to that small patch of ground where she had seen the man four nights before. The graves there were not fresh. One had sunken slightly. Another had flattened against the earth. A third had a stone so old that the carvings had become unreadable. The light seemed stranger here than it had from the window, leaching the color from her skin. She seemed fanciful, a phantom herself. If someone saw her, they might not think they were seeing young Miss d.i.c.kinson, but a specter instead.

Something rose behind one of the ancient tilting headstones-a column of smoke, no!, a man dressed all in black, a cowl over his head, a scythe in his hand.

Emily fled across the gra.s.s, careful to avoid sinking graves, her breath coming in great gasps. She was halfway to the house before she caught herself.

It was, she thought, a trick of the light, and nothing more. She had expected to see a phantom in the graveyard and so she had-the worst of all phantoms, that old imperator, Death.

She made herself turn. She was not frightened of anything, and she would not flee like a common schoolgirl from phantoms in the darkness.

Behind her, the sky was clear, the silver light still filling the burial ground. But there was no column of smoke, no cowled figure, no scythe.

There was, however, that handsome young man, leaning on a gravestone that looked like it might topple at any moment.

He smiled at her again, and her traitorous heart leapt in antic.i.p.ation. But she knew better than to approach him-not because she was afraid of him; she wasn't-but because she knew once she spoke, this illusion of interest and attraction would fade, and he would see her as all the others had, as intense and odd and unlikable.

"Emily Elizabeth d.i.c.kinson," he said, his voice a rich baritone. "Look at you. 'She walks in beauty, like the night.'"

His use of her name startled her. That he so easily quoted Lord Byron startled her all the more. A literate man, and one not afraid of showing his knowledge of the more scandalous poets.

She straightened her shoulders so that she stood at her full height, which wasn't much at all. She knew some often mistook her for a child; she was so slight and small.

"You have me at a disadvantage, sir," she said. "You know of me, but I do not know of you."

His smile was small. "I know of many people who do not know me," he said. "In fact, I am astounded that you can see me at all."

"Tis the strange light, sir," she said. "It illuminates everything."

"That it does," he said. "You should not be able to see it, either."

He was strange, from his word choice to his conversation to his decision to lean against a gravestone. Was this how others saw her? Strange, unpredictable, something they had never encountered before?

"If by that you mean I should not be out here among the graves, you are probably right," she said. "But it is a beautiful evening, and I fancied a walk."

He laughed. "You fancied me."

She raised her chin ever so slightly. "I beg your pardon, sir."

"I did not mean that like it sounds," he said. "You saw me four nights ago, and you came to see what I was doing."

He had caught her again. "Perhaps I did, sir," she said. "What of it?"

"Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing here?" he asked.

"Mourning, I would a.s.sume," she said. "I did not mean to intrude upon your grief."

"You're not," he said. "I am not grieving. I am just visiting my dead."

Blunt words, harsh words, but true words. He was a kindred soul. Her entire family constantly admonished her for her harsh speech. But, she said, she preferred truth to socially acceptable lies.

It seemed, however, that others did not.

She took a step toward him. His eyes twinkled, which surprised her. Before she had thought them dark and deep, unfathomable. The hint of light in them was unexpected.

"Why visit at night?" she asked. "Wouldn't it be better to come here during the day?"

"Yes, it would," he said. "But daylight is not available to me. So I bring my own."

His hand moved, as if he were indicating the silver light. But it seemed to have no obvious source. If he had command of the silver light, then he also had command of the moonlight, something no mortal could possibly have.

So she dismissed his talk as fanciful. But intriguing. Everything about him was intriguing.

He tilted his head as he looked at her. There was a power in his gaze she had never encountered before. It drew her, like it had drawn her that first night. But she was suspicious of power and charisma, much as it attracted her.

"The real question," he said, "is not why I'm here, but why you're here."

"We've already discussed that, sir. I came to investigate the light."

"Ah, yes," he said softly. "But how did you see this light?"

"Sir?" The question disturbed her, and she wasn't quite sure why. She certainly wasn't going to tell him that her bedroom overlooked the burial ground. The fact that he had seen her in her room was already an invasion of privacy no one she knew would approve of.

"This," he said, sweeping his hand again-indicating the graves instead of the light? Had she mistook the gesture?-"should all be invisible to you for another forty years."

She laughed at his naivete. Death surrounded them always, didn't he know that?

"Death, sir," she said primly, and saw him start at the word, "is all we know of heaven. And all we need of h.e.l.l."

His smile faded, and so did the light in his eye. "True enough," he said. "So. Don't I frighten you?"

He attracted her; he did not frighten her.

"I suppose you should," she said. "But you do not."

"Amazing," he said softly. "You are truly amazing."

He stood, dusted off the back of his trousers, and nodded at her, his mouth in a determined line.

"This meeting is inappropriate," he said.

She shrugged, no longer uncomfortable. "I have found that most of what I do is inappropriate," she said, wondering if she should admit such a thing to a man she had just met. "I did not mean to compromise you."

He laughed. The sound boomed across the stones. "Compromise me." He bowed slightly, honoring her. "You are a treasure, Miss d.i.c.kinson."

"And you are a mystery, sir," she said.

He nodded. "The original mystery in fact," he said. "And I think that for tonight, we shall leave it that way. Good night, Miss d.i.c.kinson."

Dismissed, then. Well, she was used to that. People could not stomach her presence long.

"Good night, sir," she said, and slowly, reluctantly, made her way back to the house.

August 16, 1870 The Homestead Amherst, Ma.s.sachusetts Thomas Wentworth Higginson called her his partially cracked poetess. He knew, long before he traveled to the d.i.c.kinson home in Amherst, that the woman who wrote to him was different. He had many words for her-wayward, difficult, fascinating.

But none of them prepared him for what he found.

He arrived on a hot August afternoon, expecting conversation about literature and publication and poetry. He preferred literary conversation; he tried not to think about the war, although it haunted him. He dreamed of boots tramping on damp ground, of neighing horses, and startled men.

But he woke, panicked, whenever he saw the hooded figure approach, shrouded in darkness, carrying a scythe.

The d.i.c.kinson house itself was beautiful, easily the finest house in Amherst. Two vast stories, built in the Federal style, with an added cupola and a conservatory. Higginson had not expected such finery, including the extensive white fence, the broad expanse of grounds, and the steps leading up to the gate.

He felt, for the first time in years, as if he had not dressed finely enough, as if his usual suit coat and trousers, light worsted to accommodate the summer heat, was too casual for a family that could afford a house like this.

But he had known some of the greatest people in the country, and he had learned that finery did not always equal sn.o.bbery. So he rapped on the door with confidence, removing his hat as the door swung open.

A woman no longer young opened the door. Her eyes were bright, her chestnut hair pulled away from her round cheeks. She smiled welcomingly, and said, "You must be Colonel Higginson."

"At your service, ma'am," he said, bowing slightly.

She giggled, which surprised him, and said, "We do not stand on ceremony here, sir. I am Lavinia d.i.c.kinson. I'll fetch my sister for you."

She beckoned him to step inside, and so he did with a bit of relief that this clear-eyed, normal girl was not his poetess. He would have been disappointed if she had been wrapped in a predictable facade.

The entry was a wood-paneled room, dark and oppressive after the bright summer light. Lavinia d.i.c.kinson delivered him to the formal parlor dotted with lamps, marking it as a house filled with readers. He sat on the edge of the settee as Lavinia d.i.c.kinson disappeared behind a door, leaving him, hat in hand, to await instruction. He felt like a suitor rather than an accomplished man who had come to visit one of his correspondents.

Eight years of letters with Emily, as she bid him to call her. Eight years of poems and criticisms and comments. Eight years, spanning his war service and his homecoming, two moves, and changes he had never been able to imagine.

Still, her letters arrived with their tiny handwriting and their startling poems. He had looked forward to this meeting for months now, had tried to stage it for a few years. But the poetess herself rarely left Amherst and he rarely traveled there.

His hands ached slightly, and he unclenched his fingers so that he did not crush his hat.

The house unsettled him; at least, that was what he thought at first. But as the moments wore on, he realized his unease came from the whispers around him, and then something stirring in the air, like a strong rain-scented wind arriving before a storm.

The door banged open, and the storm arrived. She was tiny, with her red hair pulled into two smooth bands. Her plain white dress made her seem young-it was a girl's dress-but the blue net worsted shawl over it was an older woman's affectation. She clutched two day lilies in one fist.

He would have thought her childlike if not for her eyes. They glowed. His breath caught, and he stood a half second too late. He had seen eyes like that before, although not nearly as manic, when he sat across from the militant abolitionist John Brown, whose raid on Harper's Ferry had helped start the war.

Higginson, along with five friends, had funded that raid. He would not have done so if he hadn't believed in Brown and his extreme methods. Most people had been frightened of the man, but Higginson hadn't been. He had thought then that Brown, whom some later called crazy, had the light of G.o.d in his eyes.

Higginson did not think G.o.d existed in Emily d.i.c.kinson's eyes. An odd silver light looked through him, and even though she smiled, she did not seem warm.

She thrust the flowers at him and said, "Forgive me if I'm frightened-"

She didn't seem frightened to him. She seemed excited, like a child about to receive a treat for good behavior. She held part of herself in check, but the excitement overpowered her control, making her jitter.

"-but I hardly see strangers and I don't know what to say."

That didn't stop her. She started talking, but he had trouble listening; all he could do was focus on those eyes. Killer eyes. He had seen eyes like that in some Rebel soldiers as they bayoneted his men. He made himself breathe, made himself listen, made himself converse, but he scarcely remembered what he said.

She introduced him to her father-a colorless old man, without much humor-and invited her sister to join them, but her sister demurred.

Instead, Higginson was stuck with Emily. He felt something drain from him as she talked, a bit of his life essence, as if being around her took something from him. It took all of his considerable strength just to hold his own against her.

The comparison to a storm wasn't even apt. She wasn't a summer storm, filled with rain and thunder. She was a tornado, sweeping in and seizing all around her. Only his encounter with her did not last an instant; it lasted hours.

And when it was finally finished, he staggered out of that strange house, relieved to be gone, and thrilled that she had not touched him. It took all of his strength to hold the day lilies she had given him. The day lilies and the photograph of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's grave.

Emily had smiled at him, a strange, sad, pathetic little smile, and said she was grateful because he had saved her life.

He hadn't saved her life. He hadn't done anything except read her poetry. He had even told her not to publish it because he thought it undisciplined, like her. Or so he had initially thought.

But that evening, as he sat alone in his rented room, trying to find words to express to his wife the strangeness of the experience, he realized that Miss Emily d.i.c.kinson hadn't been undisciplined. She hadn't been undisciplined at all.

In fact, it seemed to him, she was one of the most disciplined people he had ever met, as though explosions constantly erupted inside her and she had to keep them contained.

I never was with any one who drained my nerve power so much, he finally wrote to his wife. Without touching her, she drew from me. I am glad not to live near her.

He couldn't write any more. He didn't dare tell Mary that he felt Emily d.i.c.kinson had taken something vital from him, that talking to her had made him feel as if he were one step closer to death.

December 18, 1854 The West Street House Amherst, Ma.s.sachusetts Emily woke up in his arms, cradled against his chest. This man, who seemed so otherworldly, was warm and pa.s.sionate. His breathing was even, regular, but try as she might, she could not hear his heart beat.

She tried not to think of that, just like she tried not to think about what she was letting him do, sneaking into her room, lying naked in her bed. Her father had never caught him here, and she used to be afraid of what her father would do.

But now she didn't have that fear. Now she was afraid of what this man would do, this man who carried silver light with him as if he held a lantern.

The light did come when he summoned it, just like he had said to her. And it fled when he asked it to leave. The darkness around him without the light was absolute. She felt same with him, in that darkness, but when he left, terror came.

And he always left before dawn.

He could not handle the light-real light. Daylight.

Her time with him would lessen as summer came, just like it always had. They lived best in winter, together.

She knew what he was. She watched him, after he left her, fading as his light faded, disappearing into the absolute darkness he created. Over time, some of his silver light spilled into her and she could see in the dark better than a cat could.

She could see him don his cowl, and pick up his scythe.

The nights he left early, the nights he arrived late, changed Amherst as well. The days after those nights she heard stories of breathing ceased, and hearts stopped, and sometimes she saw the funerals in the graveyard beneath her window, and she knew they happened because he had been there. He had touched someone.

Not like he touched her.

She was different, or so he said, had been different from the day they met. She should not have been able to see him, not until she was nearly dead herself.

But she was beginning to think she was not alive, not really, that something inside her had died long before she had found him, that her spirit had vanished, that she had no soul.

Surely, she did not feel the stirrings her family felt at revivals, and she did not feel the call of G.o.d. She understood He existed, but at a distance, not as someone who could live within her heart.

In earlier times, less enlightened times, here in Ma.s.sachusetts, they would have called her a witch.